To:      The BTC Extended Leadership Team

Cc:      The MDOL Community – Colleagues and Partners

 

At the October Bend the Curve Extended Leadership Team meeting, several attendees raised concerns that we were failing to communicate well, and that unless we do better, we are jeopardizing what we’re trying to do.

 

The ELT is made up of the Office of the Commissioner, bureau and division directors, and their deputies and group managers.  There is also a steering committee, made up of the Commissioner, her staff, and bureau and division directors, with primary responsibility for leading Bend the Curve.

 

What follows is our recommendations for better communications.  At the back of this document are the raw findings the three of us prepared, based on what we are seeing and hearing.  We are just three people, and have no way of knowing exactly how well we captured what’s happening, but we are confident that we’re accurate enough to give good guidance to the steering committee.  It has been delivered to the Commissioner and to the steering committee, and will be submitted to the ELT on Dec. 28.

 

We organized our recommendations by assigning each finding to an area:  Administration, meaning the Commissioner and Jane Gilbert as BTC Project Manager; the steering committee, and two general categories of communications structure, and the quality of the BTC “message”.  Numbers in parentheses show which of the four areas the finding is related to.  In the recommendations for each area, you will find the items numbered according to the related finding number.  At the end of several items are capitalized words like AUTHENTICITY.  These are from a leadership evaluation, similar to the 360 Culture Survey you were asked to complete, and represent important attributes that are intended to guide our behavior toward being better leaders.

 

We share this with our community so that you can know that there is a lot of work going on as we learn what we need to do.  We expect that leadership will address each of these concerns and let you all know what’s being done.

 

Respectfully Submitted,

Dawn Mealey

Bob Arbour

Sheldon Bird

 

BTC Communications Committee Recommendations

 

Following are the committee’s recommendations for correcting what we believe are problems that are causing resistance to BTC at this time.  The recommendations for the findings above are presented for each of the four areas identified:  Steering Committee, Administration (Laura, Jane), Communications Best Practices, and Message.  The last two are intended for the culture as a whole, and particularly for leaders.  Each recommendation references one of the core leadership qualities from the 360 evaluations.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

Dawn Mealey

Bob Arbour

Sheldon Bird

 

11/29/04

 

For the Steering Committee:

 

1.                  We, the people, can’t hear you.  You need to tell us what is going on.  We recommend that minutes be taken and published.  If you need to discuss confidential matters, you should agree on and publish a set of criteria for what may be discussed confidentially, and use a formal process for moving to “executive session” just like other public meetings.  As much as being told of decisions, we need also to understand how decisions are made, e.g. what projects are chosen for VSM.  COMMUNITY CONCERN, AUTHENTICITY, PURPOSEFUL AND VISIONARY, INTEGRITY

2.                  You should continue to require that the message be taught using several modes of learning, e.g. verbal, visual, hands-on, like the game and the role playing at the 11/23 Extended Leadership Team.  People learn in different ways, and sometimes it requires many ways to deliver the same message.  Top leaders need to hold attendees accountable for being engaged, regardless of whether a particular exercise suites them or not.  What works for one may not work for another, but sending the message of not being engaged hurts the whole dynamic.  COMMUNITY CONCERN, AUTHENTICITY, SELFLESS LEADER, CARING CONNECTION, MENTORING AND DEVELOPING, COMPOSURE

3.                  (Also #8)  BTC must be presented consistently in a positive, non-threatening, “softened” way if the direction set up by the road show is to be believed.  COURAGEOUS AUTHENTICITY, CARING CONNECTION

4.                  The Steering Committee needs to assure that communication is kept up, especially when there’s an apparent lull in other public manifestations.  BTC communication at all levels needs to reveal to the community what is going on behind the scenes, and address confusion and setbacks in a timely manner, to correct misunderstandings and stay ahead of the rumor mill.  AUTHENTICITY, SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTIVITY

6.         Avoid buzzwords and acronyms in communication.  Try as much as possible to put a home-grown DOL face on the dogma.  MENTORING/DEVELOPING

9.         Always keep the customer focus to the front, at least on par with the money focus.  If we focus on value to the customer, the $9M may take care of itself, right?  More balance in the message.  AUTHENTICITY (per road show message) and INTEGRITY

10.       Dawn Mealey has submitted a set of recommendations for future VSM.  We recommend that you also look to them for dealing with current VSM problems.

11.       Produce a newsletter, or better yet, incorporate BTC news in the weekly Commissioner’s newsletter.  Our understanding is that that newsletter started as a Labor-Management communications recommendation.

12        The Steering Committee needs to publicly address the cultural gap.  Failure to do so seems to foster an “us vs. them” (Bottoms vs. Middles vs. Tops, or field vs. central).  Senior managers, extended team, and ultimately line supervisors need to understand and acknowledge “the other side”, that we’re all in this together.  Why did we take the culture survey?  What are we doing with what we learned?  COMMUNITY CONCERN, PURPOSEFUL AND VISIONARY

15.       A sponsor must be closely involved with his or her VSM process.  They should receive the results of each meeting.  They must address the group when appropriate, and should certainly kick off each project in person.  The groups should know to go to the sponsor when stuck, e.g. not enough information, wrong or missing people, etc.  What is the role of the sponsor after the project is chosen?

 

For the Administration

 

1.         The administration should hold the Steering Committee accountable for telling the world what’s happening – decisions, plans, progress, changes, and bumps.  INTEGRITY, AUTHENTICITY

13.       There needs to be a continual process of healing.  In order to heal, we must understand clearly what is wrong.  We recommend, for example, exit interviews at a high enough level so that decision-makers can understand the culture.  We do not believe top management has enough information to effect healing and improve trust, or if they do, they are turning a deaf ear.

            Healing/trust behavior should be taught as a module in DOL management training.  COMMUNITY CONCERN

16.       The task of communicating which projects were chosen and which were not was left up to sponsors.  Only the team/caucus members heard details.  The rest just heard pass or fail. 

Why not allow or charter local teams to work their own initiatives, and have one from each team on a steering committee for local initiatives?  This could work alongside VSM projects to keep momentum up and bend the curve in many small ways, and empower workers.

Suggestions for General Communications Practices and Protocol

 

2.         Continue and ensure teaching to multiple learning modalities, using games, exercises, role-playing and so on.  In order for this to be effective, though, facilitators need to hold attendees accountable for being engaged.  Steering committee needs to tell BTC participants that even if an exercise is not their particular cup of tea, it may be perfect for someone else, and it’s important for everyone to be engaged 100% of the time.  Disengaging is a form of communication.  INTEGRITY, COMPOSURE

3.         (also noted in recommendation to Steering Committee, but this is an important practice for the culture) Steering Committee minutes should be captured and published, in order to make the decisions process transparent.  There should be a known set of criteria governing how the group determines a discussion will be off the record, and the move to executive session should be a formality.  COURAGEOUS AUTHENTICITY and INTEGRITY

            People who receive BTC ideas from and at any level must acknowledge and respond to them.  We recommend a formal structure for submitting ideas.  This work is essential for keeping people bought in as they test the culture we advertised in the road shows.  AUTHENTICITY

7.         To be refined for later submission.

11.       Publish BTC news, either in a regular newsletter for the purpose, or better as part of the Commissioner’s weekly newsletter.  Assign this task to someone.  We believe BTC news will help strengthen the value of the weekly newsletter, and that news is essential to BTC momentum and trust.

Regarding the BTC Message

 

3.         Either keep the customer focus front and center, on parity with the money issue, or publicly remove it from the drivers.  Don’t keep letting it languish, because the perception is emerging that the $9M is really what this is all about and that when the crunch comes, the talk about the customer is meaningless.  INTEGRITY, AUTHENTICITY

5.         For later submission

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

BTC Communications Committee Findings

11/04

 

DRAFT

 

Key to what area the finding relates to: 

I:  STEERING 

II.  ADMINISTRATION

III.  COMMUNICATIONS STRUCTURE / PROTOCOL

IV.  CORE BTC “MESSAGE”

 

1.         (I,II)     We can’t hear the steering committee.

2.         (I,III)    BTC leaders need to use multiple modes of teaching.

3.         (I,III,IV)           Present BTC in a more positive light

·        People seemed receptive and energetic at first

·        Many now see it as authority-driven, a harder edge.

·        People don’t understand why certain decisions are made (example?)

·        If an idea is put off, a time frame should be published (acknowledgement)

4.         (I)                    There seems to be a momentum loss after the three one-day sessions

5.         (IV)      Can we find a way to make the mission statement more relevant to daily work?

6.         (I)        Terminology is becoming complicated and overwhelming to some.

7.         (III,IV) Messages are different depending on where you sit.

8.         (I,IV)   We need to “soften” the tone of the BTC message.

9.         (I,IV)   Some messages seem to focus too much on the $9M, losing the original message

10.       (I)        The first VSM exercises were led by MEP skilled facilitators.

·        Train the trainer one-day sessions, subsequent sessions led by in-house leaders

·        These facilitators had varying levels of core skills

·        There was no orientation at China Lake, so there was widespread confusion about process, a lack of direction, and a lack of preparation

·        Some groups leapt to “to be” without doing “as is”

·        Not all team members had realistic expectations

·        Some groups lacked key members – not all the right people were there.

11.       (I,III,IV)           There needs to be a newsletter, and it needs to be someone’s job.

12.       (I)The 360 culture survey shows a wide gap between admin and field cultures and views of management.

13.       (II,IV)  There is a widespread and intense fear of retribution.

14.       (IV)      Steering Committee needs to recommit to promises made in road shows

15.       (I)        How should a group make use of its sponsor?

16.       (II,IV)  There is a feeling of being pushed from above, rather than “blossoming from below”.